


Before the last scene of 01x08 (The Mile High Job)

by PseudoLeigha



Series: (More) 2AM Conversations [8]
Category: Leverage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-06-01 14:37:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6524215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PseudoLeigha/pseuds/PseudoLeigha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The obligatory Eliot/Parker First Aid Scene</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before the last scene of 01x08 (The Mile High Job)

They stayed on the island for a night after the almost-crash landing, partly because there were no flights out that evening, and partly because Nate said it would be less suspicious if they didn’t all arrive and leave together.

Parker, for one, was glad for the delay. She was very, very bruised (and covered in little scrapes), had somehow managed to twist an ankle (strained, not sprained), and from what she could see in the mirror, this cut on her shoulder blade could probably use a few stitches. She had no idea what she ran into, getting thrown around the cargo hold in the dark, but it got her good.

In the excitement of the landing, no one had questioned her story of being in the hold to search for an inhaler. She had done her usual vanishing act to go collect a few supplies (clothes and various bandages) before joining the team at the hotel. She had a very hot shower, wrapped and iced her ankle, and checked for a concussion and internal bleeding before taking a nap (she had neither). Unfortunately, she couldn’t stitch the shoulder wound herself (even she wasn’t _that_ flexible), so she had had to make due with a box of lifted butterfly bandages. What was another scar, after all?

By the time she hauled herself down to dinner, there was no outward sign of her weakened state, cuts and bruises hidden behind long sleeves and her limp concealed from everyone except maybe Eliot. He was preoccupied playing bodyguard for their witness, but she took care to make sure he was ahead of her and unable to see it, just in case.

It was therefore unexpected when Eliot knocked on her door, as well as late – the bedside clock said half-past one.

“Marissa’s finally asleep,” was his only explanation. Parker vaguely recalled that the witness was supposed to be sharing a room with Sophie, not Eliot, and she was pretty sure that the principle being asleep didn’t mean a bodyguard could take a break, but maybe one of the others was babysitting. It didn’t matter, anyway. It wasn’t her problem. She gave him a one-shouldered shrug and let him come in, knowing well enough by now that he would be more suspicious and worried about her if she tried to keep him out.

“You alright?” he asked gently as the door closed.

“Fine.”

“Parker… Don’t lie to me.” Damn it. She must have spoken too fast again.

“I’m fine. Really.” She was. She had already taken care of everything.

“You’re tryin’ to hide a limp, and you were bleedin’ when we got off that damn death trap,” he said.

She shook her head. “What do you want, Eliot?”

“Just checkin’ up on you.”

“I can take care of myself.” She always had, as long as she could remember.

“I know that.” Oops, Eliot sounded a little angry now. “If I didn’t think you could, I’d’a been up here a long time ago. But it’s my job to take care of the team, so will you just let me make sure you’re not gonna die in the night or have to go to the hospital?”

“I don’t have a concussion, no internal bleeding. I’m fine.”

“Humor me, Parker?” He crossed his arms, a sure sign that he wasn’t going to just give up and leave. She was too tired and sore to argue with the crossed arms.

She let all her frustration out in an _urgh_ , but pulled her long-sleeved shirt off with one hand, shimmying out of her pants almost as quickly and sitting on the bed. “Fine!”

He ran a practiced eye over her bruised torso and limbs before taking her ankle in hand and unwrapping it.

“It’s just a strain,” she muttered as he manipulated the abused extremity and re-wrapped it, not quite as tight as she would have, but well enough.

“Lie down, stubborn girl,” he answered, nodding at the bed.

She sighed. This was always the most awkward part, in her opinion. She had been in the hospital before, after really bad falls, and once after she got hit by a car. They always wanted to poke at her bruises and make sure none of the organs under them were swelling with blood. She made ouch-faces as he palpitated her abdomen, but he ignored them, knowing as well as she did that the surface bruises weren’t the real issue, no matter how much they might ache.

“Alright,” he said after a few minutes’ prodding. “Roll over.”

“’m not a dog,” she grumbled, but she did as instructed, flopping over so he could see her bandaged shoulder.

“What’s this?” he asked, disapproval so clear in his voice that even she caught it.

“Dunno,” she said. It should be obvious as soon as he got the tape off that she got cut/stabbed/run into by something sharp and heavy.

“Parker, this needs stitches,” he said, poking at the short, deep slice to her trapezius.

Like she didn’t know that. “I’d like to see you stitch your own shoulder,” she retorted.

“Well, either we’re goin’ to the hospital, or you’re gonna see me stitch yours,” he snorted. “Butterfly bandages.” When she looked up, he was shaking his head.

“You do it,” she said, letting her own head fall back down onto the bed. “I don’t wanna get up. Hospital’s probly not even open this late, anyway.”

“Are you sure? I think they are, and they’d have a local there.”

Parker pointed at the five-inch-long scar on the outside of her left leg without looking up. It was a remnant of her first major screw-up, when she was thirteen, and got seen by a homeowner and then chased over a spiked fence by a couple of Dobermans. She’d sewed it herself, with dental floss and an embroidery needle, and half a bottle of rubbing alcohol on it before and after, because she couldn’t risk being picked up at the hospital for breaking into that house, and they knew the thief was wounded. It eventually got so infected that she turned herself in to social services to get it fixed. She was pretty damn sure nothing Eliot would do to her could hurt more than that.

He seemed to figure out what she was saying, or at least close enough, without words, because he said, “Fine, wait here,” and disappeared with her room key. A few minutes later he was back with gloves and proper suture thread and a curved needle in a little sterile package. He also had a bag of ice wrapped in a towel that he sat on her ankle without a word, and a little bottle of pills that she pushed away when he tried to hand them to her.

“I don’t do drugs,” she muttered. _Especially_ not painkillers. The good ones were addictive, and the rest weren’t worth bothering with.

“Suit yourself.”

“Alcohol and iodine in the bathroom,” she informed him, and he brought those as well, along with a towel so she wouldn’t bleed on the bed, and the gauze and the tape. She sighed. Getting fixed up took so long. Healing was the worst part of the job, way worse than getting hurt in the first place.

“You sure about this?” Eliot asked again, when everything was ready. Stupid question.

“Just do it.”

She closed her eyes and bit her lip against the pain as he pulled the butterflies loose and cleaned the wound again. Tears gathered in her eyes, but she didn’t make a sound. The stitches themselves didn’t hurt too bad after that (she was pretty sure the alcohol and poking around killed all the exposed nerves), though they were much worse than putting the butterflies on in the first place, even with the twisting she’d had to do in front of the mirror. Still, he was quick, and before she knew it, he was taping a new gauze pad over the stitches and telling her things she already knew about limiting her range of movement and keeping the wound clean.

She nodded, and he squeezed her good shoulder, murmuring, “You did good,” in his rumbly southern voice before cleaning up and moving toward the door.

Just as he opened it to let himself out, she decided she had to say it, even if it was admitting that she had needed his help. “Hey Eliot?”

“Yeah, darlin’?”

“Thanks.”

He smiled then, a little half-sad smile that said he knew exactly what it meant that she said it, but wouldn’t hold it against her. “Any time, Parker.”


End file.
